The Hard Right and the myth of the Knights Templar

The hard right is beginning to hijack the narrative of the Crusades and of the Knights Templar in these post Brexit and post Trump times. They feed a nationalist agenda using the ideas of the Crusades. They never tell you that St George was actually a Kurdish Muslim, they never tell you of the learning of Saladin and how the early Islamic society kept open the Holy Places in Palestine for the Christians. They never tell you of the violence and the butchery of the Crusading Knights in Constantinople and their destruction of the Byzantine Empire in 1204. No they would never tell you that would they?

While surfing the net and perusing Facebook some of you may have come across an organisation called The Knights Templar International. And this name is a reference to a historical group of war like Christian knights who participated in the brutal crusades in the middle east centuries ago

This link below clearly shows that the notorious Jim Dowson is a key figure in the Knights Templar International. A sectarian loyalist bigot from northern Ireland Dowson has also been a key financial backer of the Nazi BNP and the neo fascist Britain First. He has links to numerous other far right and neo fascists across the world. 

http://irbf.org.uk/knights-templar-international-analysis/

After some research following information that was passed to me I was then very disturbed to see a number of individuals in local Facebook groups openly expressing support for and leaving supportive  comments on the pages of Knights Templar, an organisation that is a front for neo fascists and white supremacists and various other front groups it operates on Facebook 

And the connections between the Knights Templar and the British far right go further. This link reveals numerous Facebook groups - with names like Lonheart, eEnglish patriot and even some poppy groups  - are operated by Britain First. 

http://edlreview.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/britain-first-secretly-run-these-facebook-pages.html

Indeed a brief visit to the pages of the Facebook groups named in the above link will reveal they frequently share the exact same stories. 

Unsurprisingly British neo fascist organisations threw everything into securing a leave vote during the EU referendum - even the mail on Sunday was concerned enough about  far right infiltration of the leave campaign to investigate it http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3625503/The-neo-Nazi-swastika-breast-Vote-Leave-badge-vest-Holocaust-deniers-EDL-fascists-posing-Kray-twins-grave-violent-thugs-racists-hijacking-Brexit-campaign.html

Part of the twisted credo of organisations like the Knights Templar - and the numerous far right groups they are linked to - is that they present themselves as defenders of  'western civilisation'. An irony being that  the body they so strenuously oppose - the EU - arguably exhibits the best of any so called western civilisation. With its commitment to upholding human rights and the rule of law, protecting refugees and the fact it was set up  in the 1950s to prevent any more terrible wars breaking out in Europe.

No we need to understand that when the likes of the knights Templar and their local Facebook supporters speak of 'western civilisation' they mean the kind of 'civilisation' espoused by Adolf Hitler and his contemporary supporters like the mass murderer Anders Brevik. 
I will be continuing my research into this matter, and some of the screenshots ive taken of those individuals pledging support for the Knights Templars makes very interesting reading. Some interesting information can also be found here concerning the activities of certain individuals and the links betwwen Fundamentalist and evangelical Christian far right groups http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/britain-first/

Some months ago I wrote a piece on this blog called Onward Christian kippers. It can be found at........

http://all-to-human.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/onward-christian-kippers-marching-on-to.html .

This is an interesting piece that comes from Reuters some years concerning the mass murderer Anders Brevik who claimed to be a Knights Templar, This is the legacy that we all need to be aware of.

“18 years later, one of those at this meeting caused the sort of carnage the group had discussed as being an essential part of their campaign, the bombing and shooting rampage that killed at least 76 people in Norway.

At least that is the version of events recorded in a rambling 1,500 page manifesto penned by Anders Behring Breivik, the man who has admitted to carrying out Friday's attacks.

Security services across Europe are trying to figure out whether he really was part of a wider, right-wing organization plotting atrocities, a "lone wolf" or a fantasist.

Experts say there is no evidence to suggest the Knights Templar Europe exist or actually met in London but warn it would be wrong to discount it entirely.

"Err of the side of caution," said Martin Feldman, who runs the Radicalism and New Media Research Group at the University of Northampton and is a leading expert on right-wing extremism in Britain

"Just because they're small and under the radar doesn't mean they didn't exist."

In his manifesto "2083: A European Declaration of Independence," Breivik says the Knights Templar, a medieval order of crusading Christian monks, were re-founded to fight against the "ongoing European Jihad."

The meeting was hosted by an "English Protestant" with attendees from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Russia, Serbia, and another member from England. Members from Sweden, Belgium and a "European-American" were unable to attend.

"Our primary objective is to develop PCCTS (Poor Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon), Knights Templar into becoming the foremost conservative revolutionary movement in Western Europe the next few decades," he wrote.

MATTER OF URGENCY

Breivik's lawyer said on Tuesday his client was probably insane and Feldman said that, while it was unclear if the London meeting ever happened, Breivik's talk of other cells in Norway and abroad should be investigated.

"It does seem like a matter of urgency that we need to look at whether there are other chapters across Europe of this so-called Knights Templar Europe," Feldman said.

London's Metropolitan Police, which monitors extremism in Britain, is helping investigate the Norway attacks.

"We're looking at these links but nothing has come out that has led us to launch a major inquiry here," a police source said.

The Home Office (Interior Ministry) said it had no record of Breivik's movements and security services in Belgium, Sweden and other countries named by Breivik said they were running checks, though had found no evidence of links to the Norwegian thus far.

Even if the Knights Templar Europe was formed back in 2002, the group could simply have disintegrated, said Richard English from the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

"We don't know what to make of the talk of more cells at this stage -- although at the moment I would put that down mainly to scaremongering," he told Reuters.

"Even if the meeting did take place, different people might have taken very different paths," he said. Breivik's own manifesto hints fellow members may have got cold feet.

If Breivik's organization did exist, Britain would appear a strong candidate for its base -- Breivik cites the 2002 meeting in London and makes repeated references to the English Defense League (EDL), a populist right-wing anti-Islamist group.

The EDL, which says it is non-racist, has staged many protests across the country, many of which have ended in violent confrontations with opponents.

"I wonder sometimes if one of the EDL founders was one of the co-founders of PCCTS, I guess I'll never know for sure," Breivik wrote.

"I know this for a fact as I used to have more than 600 EDL members as Facebook friends and have spoken with tens of EDL members and leaders."

The anti-fascist magazine Searchlight said Breivik exchanged messages with the EDL in the last few months using the name Sigurd Jorsalfare, a reference to the 12th century King of Norway who led one of the Crusades.

"The biggest problem in Norway is that there is no real free press, there is a left-wing angle on all the political topics so most people are going around like idiots," said one post, according to Searchlight.

In a statement on its website the EDL denied any official connection and said Breivik's own manifesto had criticized them.

"I have never personally met this man, I've never had no interaction with him, never had any dealings with him," said EDL founder Stephen Lennon.

The Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), another right-wing group name-checked by Breivik, doubted whether the Knights Templar Europe existed.

"I've done extensive research into our organization and there's no link at all," Stephen Gash, a self-professed English nationalist from SIOE, told Reuters. "I don't think he's actually affiliated to any organization as far as I can make out apart from this one he's made up, this Knights Templar."

Senior British police officers have said far-right movements are on the increase but lack the organized structures of other groups and tend to be "lone wolves."

"Mostly, I have to say, they tend to be less organized. It tends to be the concept of the 'lone wolf'," John Yates, until last week Britain's top counter-terrorism officer, told lawmakers in 2009.

Feldman said even the lone wolves tend to come from a community or have supporters who shared the same ideology, if not their violent intent.

"(These are) people who say I've got to go that one step further and be the person who starts this civil war," he said, adding Breivik's manifesto itself posed the greatest concern as "a DIY kit for potential terrorists."

"It gives you everything from blending in to explosives manual, to how to kill without remorse and who the targets should be," he said. "To me this is one of the most chilling documents I've ever had the misfortune of reading."

Please dont be fooled these are dangerous times and we need to understand the origins and truth about such groups